Create a Petition

Step 1: Description

The following fields appear on the description tab of the workflow.

Reference Name

This field appears consistently through all Salsa forms. It is used for internal reference only (so you can differentiate this petition from others in a list). Your supporters will never see this data.

Action Title

This field creates the "headline" in large text at the top of the end-user page (the page your supporters will see). Typically, this is used to briefly describe the purpose of the action.

Brief Description

This text appears on the end-user page, and explains to your supporters why they should take action. The text appears below the title on the end-user page, but above the field containing the actual campaign letter. You can lay out this text block very simply or elaborately. If you want to, you can add images, text styling, hyperlinks and other design features using either code or the embedded WYSIWYG editor. Do not paste your action description text from MS Word.

Footer

The page footer text appears below the form fields where supporters enter their personal information. It is generally used for either additional explanatory text about the page or identity information about your organization.

How it looks to your supporters

Step 2: Compose Your Petition

This is the content of the petition (the uneditable message) itself – the message you are asking your supporters to sign.

It appears below the Brief Description on the user-facing page.

Step 3 - Who can act?

The options on this tab of the workflow allow you to restrict this petition to supporters who meet certain criteria.

Who is allowed to take action?

If you are not adding any restrictions, choose the default "Everyone" option. If you select Only people in the following areas, additional fields appear which you can use to restrict petition signers.

Restrict to these States

Only supporters providing an address from one of the U.S. states or Canadian provinces will be permitted to take the action. (Possible use case: When running a write-your-rep action to Minnesota state legislators, select "Minnesota" to allow only Minnesotans to write.)

Restrict to these Federal Districts

Only supporters providing an address from one of the selected U.S. congressional districts will be permitted to take the action. (Possible use case: When attempting to generate constituent messages to only a specific legislator, select that legislator's district.)

Text for Excluded Users

The text in this box (which also accepts HTML) appears to a supporter who cannot take action due to the above restrictions.

If you choose to restrict a petition in this manner, we'll need to validate that a supporter meets the criteria you set before we allow him or her to sign the petition. In this case, the supporter will be prompted to enter a zip code so we can see if she's from the correct state or federal district.

Step 4 - User Information

This tab allows you to define what information you gather from your supporters when they "sign" the petition. It also allows you to assign your supporters to groups.

Requested User Fields

This section allows you to set the fields that end-user supporters will be asked to fill out in order to sign the petition.

To change the field order, click the Use Field Order Shown Below checkbox and then drag and drop the fields.

Add to these Groups

Select groups which you have previously created in the supporter package and add them to this field. Supporters will be automatically added to these groups when they sign the petition - they'll never know it's happening.

Optional Groups

Adding groups to this field will create a series of checkboxes on the petition page. Supporters can use these checkboxes to opt in to or out of groups when they sign the petition.

Step 5 - Signatures

This tab formats the appearance of signatures on your petition action page. If you do not want users' signatures of a petition to appear on the petition page itself, simply ignore this tab.

Signature Options

Choose one of three options for how supporter signatures display on the page

Do not show signatures - Self-explanatory

Show number of signers - Displays the number, but no details about signers. You can customize how this displays to users as well.

Show number and most recent signers - Displays names in addition to overall count. Due to privacy concerns, please ensure you page properly informs potential signers that their information will be displayed to others on the page.

Signature Minimum

If you choose to display information about signers, this field allows you to set a minimum number of signatures to your petition. Signer information will not display until after this number of signatures have been obtained.

Signature Goal

This field accepts a numeric value, and will publicly set the upper limit on signatures. If you need only 1900 signatures, for instance, you would enter 1900 in this field, and after 1900 signatures were provided, no more signatures would be allowed.

Allow Signers to be Anonymous

Checking this box allows anonymous signatures to be added to the petition, advisable where a full name may not be appropriate for reasons of personal safety or privacy. There is a tradeoff for an organization:

Anonymous signatures will likely encourage more people to sign, but...

...the anonymous signatures themselves may be less credible.

NOTE: The signers name will not be displayed on the public page, but the organization will still capture in the personal information the supporter provided in the Supporter Record.

Deadline

This field accepts a date, in the form 'YYYY-MM-DD', and will be the cutoff point where no further signatures will be accepted. This field is useful for "switching off" a petition as a live action opportunity while retaining the page as a valid url.

Allow Signer Comments & Comment Question

Generally used only with petitions that display signer information, this allows the petition signers to add their own remark. If the Allow Signer Comments box is checked, the Comment Question field allows you to write the question that will solicit an additional comment from your supporters as they take action. The comment will then be displayed along with the signer's name on the petition signature list.

Manage Signatures

If you'd like to view and export petition signatures, click on the Show signatures and comments link at the top of the Signatures tab.

You'll be able to view a list of all signatures and delete any that don't look valid. You can also view comments entered by signers in this view.

If you'd like to export these signatures to Excel, click on View and export signatures. This will open a report and you'll be able to export from there.

To bulk delete duplicate signatures (rather than use the delete text link in the signature list one at a time), use the Deduplicate these signatures tool. NOTE: Signatures must be deduplicated in batches.

Step 6 - Follow-up

This tab allows you to define what occurs after a user has successfully signed a petition.

What do you want to display on success?

Choose where you would like your supporters to see after submitting the action. You can only choose one of the following options. The options are:

Display Thank You Text - The supporter will not be redirected to a new page, but will see the message entered in the Thank You Text box below.

Redirect to a Tell a Friend Page - This option will provide you with a list of existing Tell a Friend pages to choose as your redirect page. Alternatively, you can click the "Create Tell-a-Friend" link to make a TAF page on the fly.

Redirect to a Donation Page - This option will provide you with a list of existing Donation pages to choose as your redirect page.

Redirect to Another Page - This option will allow you to enter any URL as your redirect page. Make sure to include http:// at the beginning of the URL.

Email Autoresponses are automatic emails which are sent to supporters after they sign the petition. You can Add a new response from this page, or select an autoresponse you previously created by clicking Add an Existing Response. Read more about email autoresponses before using these settings.

Step 7 - Options

If there is a need to disable the petition entirely, you can simply select "Inactive" from the drop-down list.

Is it possible to set a petition start count at something other than zero? We are taking over an ongoing petition for another organization and we'd like to start the count where their petition left off, but I don't see any way to do that.

Choice 1: Simple choose the petition setting that would display number of signatures only (not names) and create fake signatures. If we're talking about a really small number of signatures that could work.

Choice 2: If you've got a large number of signatures, our developer specialist can write a quick script for you that you would simply copy and paste into the page template. This script would add X number to the petition count. Email our support team for help with that script.

For petitions which will be directed to an elected official, is there a way to forward each signature to a specific email address as users sign, or is the only option exporting signatures after reaching the deadline and/or limit?